My Warlock Elleneor is nearing lvl 20, and so on the fly I decided to follow the road already travelled and recommended (At least for my first warlock).

Here is what I am planning now;

Destruction (31)
T1 Improved Shadow Bolt (5/5)
T2 Bane (5/5)
T3 Devastation (5/5) Shadowburn (1/1)
T4 Intensity(2/2) Improved Seering Pain (5/5)
T5 Pyroclasm (1/2) Ruin (1/1)
T6 Emberstorm (5/5)
T7 Conflagrate (1/1)

Demonology (2)
T1 Improved Imp (2/3)

Affliction (16)
T1 Improved Corruption (5/5)
T2 Improved Life Tap (2/2) Improved Drain Life (3/5)
T3 Improved COA (2/3) Amplify Curse (1/1) Fel Concentration (2/5)
T4 Nightfall (1/2)

Leaving 1 for Nightfall (2/2) or when they fix Pyroclasm (2/2)

There are many Warlocks here with tons more experience than I, so whatever tips and pointers you might share would be appreciated.

QUOTE(kandrathe @ Mar 14 2005, 04:37 PM)

My Warlock Elleneor is nearing lvl 20, and so on the fly I decided to follow the road already travelled and recommended (At least for my first warlock).

Here is what I am planning now; Destruction (31)
T1 Improved Shadow Bolt (5/5)

IsB is of questionable use, as its increased damage is easily eaten up by corruption and CoA. With some strategy, might be very useful to get Shadowbolt after shadowbolt nightfalls for major damage... Early on... maybe not so useful, if you constantly spam Corruption. In fact, I don't recommend getting destruction until having at a gross minimum of 11 talent points, in order to get shadowburn.

So, IsB and Cataclysm are both very marginal. IsB probably less so early on. Take your pick.



I really like using searing pain. I either use pain or shadowbolt. Keep in mind, searing pain's high threat is going to pull from your pets about as much as shadowbolt--which is a lot. If they're already aggro'ed to you, and you have enough life to survive/fear kite them, then no problem. Just take care when you do not wish to pull them off pets.


Improved CoA stinks. Resist suppression would improve CoA's damage more than improved CoA would, as the curses would break less. If you want to stand toe-to-toe in your early levels, move those points to fel concentration. I get some use out of Amp curse, but wasn't that fond of it personally. YMMV.

I suggest aiming for nightfall (22 pts), or devastation/ruin first, then filling in the other tree. Leave one side by for the other.

Don't discount grim reach. Range is by far the warlock's best friend. If fear kiting, you'll get fewer "out of range" interrupted casts when they run away. In my pvp server, range is life.

Oh. You cannot get conflagorate without 5 points into improved immolate according to thott's warlock talent tree script

You'll also find this discussion on warlock talent builds very useful.

I built a Warlock with the plan being a focus on his Destruction skills, specifically the fire-flavored ones.

After recently hitting level 40 and gaining Conflagrate, I'm a bit confused as to its use. For the mana cost, I just don't see using it to deal a bit of extra damage while taking Inferno off an enemy. By the time I'm using it, they've taken a good chunk of DoT from Agony, Corruption, and Inferno, and it's almost guaranteed to pull the enemy off my minion. Why wouldn't I just use Searing Pain and keep Inferno working at all times?

I guess I was just expecting the spell to be more desireable than it is. I'll need to do some more testing, but right now I'm not too crazy about it.

I have a level 48 warlock, and he is currently mostly destruction. I find Ruin to be one talent I can't live without, but I will be respecing as I have some wasted in destruction and no longer plan to pursue conflagrate, as I don't really see it's use. Mine is more of hybrid, and as I'm a huge voidwalker fan, I'm pursuing improved voidwalker. Here's my talent spec:

Destruction Mastery
Improved Shadow Bolt Rank 5
Bane Rank 5
Devastation Rank 5
Shadowburn Rank 1
Intensity Rank 2
Improved Searing Pain Rank 3
Ruin Rank 1
Destruction Total: 22

Affliction Mastery
Improved Corruption Rank 5
Improved Life Tap Rank 2
Improved Drain Life Rank 5
Fel Concentration Rank 5
Amplify Curse Rank 1
Nightfall Rank 2
Siphon Life Rank 1
Affliction Total: 21

Demonology Mastery
Improved Healthstone Rank 2
Demonic Embrace Rank 3
Improved Voidwalker Rank 3
Demonology Total: 8

Total Points Spent: 51
Level Required: 60

I went for talents for skills that I use. I solo and do instances in a party. It's important to use talents that compliment your play style. My advice is that Shadowburn is a super skill, and you should get that first, and improved corruption (to make it instant) is a must in my book as well, and do that either before you start destruction or right after, the 5 levels will go by quickly. I use life tap like crazy to fight longer and to reduce downtime. As warlocks heal life quicker due to demon skin/armor, to not use life tap wastes time. Whether or not you spend talent points on it, you should be sure to use it either way. A full health bar without a full mana bar is a waste on a warlock.

I realize that I miss the high end talents with my spread, but it matches my playstyle. But, getting shadowburn and improved corruption are not a waste no matter what you do with everything else. Plus, by the time you have both of those you will have a pretty good idea on what you do and don't like to use, which may help you. I don't think conflagrate is that cool, though you could burst damage fairly well at the end, but likely not burst damaging as well as nightfall proc will allow you to do.

Note: I do PvE, and my build focuses on that. For PvP, it's a tougher call, with good arguements for any tree. However, a Ruin talent enhanced crit with shadowbolt/shadowburn coupled with curse of shadows is a beautiful thing. However, that tactic in PvP requires fear kiting or seduction to get those off, as shadowburn's cooldown will require you to do both. From what I've read, most PvP users get shadowburn, but go no deeper than that in the destructions tree.

I see this as an issue with destruction 'locks in general.

Even without speccing destruction, your damage is generally not limited by your potential to do damage, but by the amount of threat generated by your minion.

I think this is why improved lash of pain is in the destruction tree, to help keep a minion up with your damage potential. But overall I think the destruction tree is less there for solo PvE anyway.

Also, building the fire skills creates an issue in end game raid content, which is currently filled with primarily fire based creatures. Hopefully this will change, with future content expansion.

Even as an affliction warlock, I easily out-aggro my pets. I'm pretty sure the only warlock that would be hard-pressed to do so would be a heavy demonology spec'd one.

I was recently contemplating destruction for PVP. I've not yet been able to try any of it out, so take it as theory craft.

Basically I get the feeling that the destruction tree is mostly useful when using your succubus in PVP. You get to capitalize on the higher damage because you don't have to worry about aggro like in PVE. What makes it good for a succubus is it's not focused on DOTs, which break seduction, so you can maximize fear time by buying time with seduction. You can Immolate/nuke while they're feared, then conflagrate near the end of the fear to end the dot for a safe seduction. Since you don't want to use DOTs anyway, you get to capitalize on curse of shadows and improved shadow bolt.

Another question for you guys. I've been kicking around the idea of a melee Warlock since the start, since I couldn't see any actual USE for the fire stones (granted, this is changing in the upcoming patch).

With heavy Demonology and proper use of curses (along with a truly unique set of gear), I'm thinking there's a chance it could work. Any thoughts?

I think it depends what you mean by "work." At least you'd be able to keep your melee weapon skill(s) up, though.

Other than the laughable firestone, warlocks have no explicit way to increase their melee damage. And with strength providing only half the benefit for warlocks that it does for the "real" melee classes, you're going to be hard-pressed to get the kind of damage necessary for a melee class with limited damage mitigation (cloth armor and no direct heals) to survive. What spells would you still be looking at using with this build?

If you're interested in warlock variants, I've heard of a "shard-less" warlock talent build/playstyle that sounds intriguing.

Sorry, no. You won't be melee'ing most of the time. If you make room, you'll be fear kiting most of the time, bandaging in-combat when extremely low on health, and only occasionally whacking enemies.

Curses are awesome, but best on-the-run or with crowd control abilities (fear or pet).

At lower levels however, melee will likely be necessary.

Every time I think I've worked out what my talent build is going to be, I find some new ideas that suggests a different plan. I'm currently working towards a 31/7/13 build. Investing enough in the Affliction tree to get Dark Pact, Improved Imp (3) and Demonic Embrace (4) from Demonology, and enough points in Demonology to get Improved Firebolt and Shadowburn.

I'll wait to test the efficiency of Dark Pact before I decide whether to re-spec away from Affliction or not.

I would suggest every warlock invest 5 points in Improved Corruption right away. Along with Curse of Agony, it gives you two instant cast DoT spells. (My usual tactic is to pull with Immolate, then CoA, Corruption, Drain Life).

Another very nice skill is Nightfall: Instant cast Shadowbolts. I find Shadowbolt casting time too slow otherwise.

Shadowburn makes a nice finisher, particularly against fleeing monsters.

Improved Imp gives a lot of bang for your buck - you get a larger stamina buff from Blood Pact, and a big increase in Firebolt damage. Plus its a level 1 skill - cheap investment.

The pets I use most at the moment are the Imp and Felhunter. You want the Felhunter out any time you're dealing with casters. He has good resists, and Spell Lock shuts casters up in a hurry. His only downfall is that he's pitiful at holding aggro.

On the official forums, they're an interesting video of a Demonology specced warlock taking people on in PvP (look for a thread in the Warlock forum). Apparently Soul Link and short cast pets can make an effective duelling combo. The trick with Soul Link is to not make it obvious you're using it, otherwise it gets dispelled pretty fast.

So many options, so little money for talen respecs.

Chris

Because I'm limited in the damage I can do by the amount of damage/threat my minion generates, I generally melee anyway, as it's less mana intensive.

My melee involves the use of a wand too, but it makes sure I have zero mana issues. A fast weapon + a good wand are the friends of warlocks and especially priests if you don't like downtime at all.

Usually I send succy out, cast CoA and corruption then melee/wand/melee/wand. Playing a warlock solo is usually more about precisely matching the damage output of your pets and less about doing tons of damage fast. If the succy is getting low on health I'll tank a mob, and in that case melee can actually outdamage spells because of the interruptions you get when casting.

In groups though, you need to be casting, and in those cases a staff is a must, since the stats on staves are generally quite a bit better than what you can get with an off hand item + 1H weapon

Ah, sorry. I didn't state that clearly. I have a level 41 Destruction Warlock and was curious on the viability of a melee variant.

i have a 44 Affliction Warlock that loves melee. Use a voidwalker for the tank. CoA, Corruption, Immolate for every fight then run up and whack the heck out of them. Use CoR near the end if fighting humanoids that run when low on HP. I hardly ever draw aggro...maybe just a bit near the end. I have a very nice staff with stat increases and crit up to 180 most of the time. Nightfall rocks for those Shadow bolts...nearly one every mob on average.

I also tailored up a set of dreamweave armor and do like +30-50 shadow damage and maybe around +20 to fire damage. I call her my meleemancer...he he.

I find the order of spells to be very important. If you cast Immolate first that initial damage is very high threat and a bad idea. If I pull with CoA then sic the void on mob then Corruption then Immolate, by the time it has fired, the void has built up pretty good aggro.

I won't have to make many of these decisions for awhile, but from what everyone is saying they are skiping the fire related aspects of higher level Destruction due to resistances of higher level mobs in high level instances.

Comparing yours to mine; you save 9 points from skiping the higher end talents of the Destruction tree which are fire specific, and you are devoting your savings to Affliction and Demonology trees. I see most here agree that Fel Concentration is a preferable investment to Improved COA, so I will take that to heart.

Over what I have spec'd for Affliction you add 5 points over me, with additional points to Improved Drain Life, shift points to Fel Concentration, and add a point to Improved Siphon Life. At this point it is tempting to take those extra 6 points and push Affliction into getting the first two levels of Shadow Mastery. But,...

... we like our Pets. You prefer the VW, but others have told me the Imp is the better end game pet.

So maybe something more like;


I like your spec, and I'll think about moving more talent points into the Affliction tree. I'm not sure about the tanking usefulness of VW at higher levels, but it would be good to hear from others how they feel about various pets at different levels.

Newbie warlock (clvl 30 thus far) just like to chime in.

I melee and use the wand all the time when I solo with voidwalker. My casting sequence is the same as Fumark, mainly due to the time for the spells to run the their course: CoA, Corruption, (ctrl + 1 VW attack if it hasn't done so), time the Immolate so it hits just after the second Torment, then time the melee/wand just after the third Torment, then alternate melee and wand and reapply Corruption and/or Immolate if necessary. Most of the time I don't pull aggro, sometimes I pull aggro when the mob is about to die. Almost always pull aggro if I use Shadowbolt (don't want to waste Nightfall) though.

Depends on the mob and whether or not I want to get my defense skill up, sometimes I will let the mob hit me once (after casting Corruption), VW on defend will then pull aggro from me. Else if it's mob that will use annoying ability, like poison, I will ctrl + 1 to order the VW to attack after CoA, and then Corruption, the timer works out well too, this way I won't get those annoying poison etc.

As finisher, either Drain Soul if I want shard, Drain Life if I want to get some life back, or CoR if it's running mob, or simply just poke or wand till it dies.

My wand, dagger and defense skills are following the caps nicely, and virtually no down time at all. In bad pull I just transfer life to VW in battle and drain from mob, and use the VW's consume shadow skill after battle if necessary. This is probably why I enjoy playing my warlock rather than my mage, the down time for mage is just not fun.

I would strongly recommend reallocating some points to max Demonic Embrace. +15% Stamina is an amazing reward for just 5 talent points and -5% Spirit.

However it does seem like you structured your skill trees specifically to reach certain talents, so there may not be room to free up the 5 needed. However if the points can be made available, it's a good investment.

Whew, after writing all this I hope you dont get too bored reding it. hope this advice helps.


I have an affliction specced warlock, currently level 47. I must say when I solo I have almost no downtime and I usually use succubus. She matches my playstyle, I find VW just doesnt tank good enough for my damage output.
Of course this depends on which level the mobs are. each 10 levels a new rank of torment is available, at 10,20,...,60 respectively. When fighting mobs whose level is just a beyond the next torment rank, the VW doesnt seem to hold aggro good enough. after getting the next rank, he will be a good tank for a few levels. Aggro management is needed to let him tank effectively, but I have noticed when soloing slighty lower level mobs, that I do better with succubus. The damage output of the succubus is great and she can tank the mob for the initial moments of the battle. With that much damage being dealt, the mobs will fall fast, thus taking less damage.

Looking at pets, when fighting mobs around my level, I must say every pet has its uses and I find myself switcdhing pets to match the situation. I can not say much about the felhound as I have not used it much. When soloing I prefer the succubus, some battles profit of the VW, when taking a lot of mobs at once (3 or more). With sacrifice you can usually buy enough time to summon a new VW if the first one doesnt last. In instances the Voidwalker seems to be the most used by me until now. It depends if the party has an extra tank or even a main tank. That being the case a succubus or imp may be the better choice (for added damage, seduce, or buffs).

There are some Talents I disagree with usefulness. I dont see myself using drain mana much, most spellcasters die quickly, so it may be better to just deal damage to them. With bosses there is the problem of them having a huge mana pool, so drain mana will not even dent. The damage added by the improved drain mana is just not worht it IMHO. Its better to drain life the mob, doing more damage, and then lifetapping to get that drained life into mana.
Same goes with improved drain soul. Warlocks really dont need that much mana regeneration. In battle you are better servedwith drain life + life tap. This talent also seems a bit bugged, so testing it has been a problem in much cases.
I would recommend relocating 2 of those 4 points into grim reach. More range is great. If you want to get shadow mastery then you may invest the other 2 points in curse of Exhaustion (even if 85% running speed isnt that much and only if you PvP some) or even suppresion seems a better choice.
I would recommend leaving shadow mastery and investing the 4 points left in demonic embrace. As Zippyy said, its a good investment. More stamina means more ife and so more mana.

Another advice I can give you is, use life tap. I have seen some warlocks not using it and it is a big mistake. Better to use it early in the battle, usually after the first two spells. and keep using it during the battle, when things get tight and you are out of mana, the second you need to life tap is a second you may need for doing another spell. As I generally use siphon life and drain life during battles, I keep lifetapping now and then. Dont be afraid, your life is your second mana pool. It not rare that I use life tap even under 20% health. In tight battles you need the mana and there is always your healthstone and / or healing pots to replenish your life.

Being affliction based I can not comment about much destruction talents, but I must say my dark pact helps me a lot to reduce downtime and I'm happy with it.

My warlock is 56 now, and has been through a 5 man BRD successfully through the seven dwarves and lord incendrius.

He uses the pet matching the situation. For giant golems, which hit hard and last long, that calls for voidwalker. For small groups of humanoids, that calls for seduce/charm crowd control. For larger groups of humanoids, that's voidwalker again.

Honestly, even though 'everyone else' thinks Improved Imp is the best, you should be getting demonic embrace before Iimp. The best pet the one most suited to the situation.

For me, the imp and succubus are mana batteries, best for long battles so long as he doesn't attack and a tank isn't needed. The succubus has CC powers, may attack indefinitly, but will be an easily squished paper tiger. VW will pull add aggro from casters, and from groups. Imp itself is a second mana pool for me, with dark pact talent spec. He is unattackable and therefore out of battle. I will never truly be out of mana when he's around. If I need extra damage, I can bring imp out to attack for temporary fast dps, but it won't last. He depletes his own large mana pool fast, and is very squishy.

Don't start worrying about end game when you haven't even begun! Save your talent points. Respec when you are much higher level (40+, or 50+, but really 58+).

My warlock (Zippyy on Stormrage) is currently level 42 and focusing on Affliction. My current 0-60 plan looks something like this:



Affliction Talents (31 points)


Improved Corruption - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Corruption spell by 2 seconds.

One of the best first row talents. Makes Corruption an instant-cast spell. 5 points well spent, and I’ve never looked back.

Suppression - 2/5 points
Reduces the chance for enemies to resist your Affliction spells by 4%.

Two points were needed to get up to the 25 affliction points needed to add points to Shadow Mastery. My choices for using up these two points were Suppression, Improved Drain Life, Improved Curse of Agony, Improved Mana Drain, and Curse of Exhaustion (with one extra point for any of the previous skills or Improved Curse of Exhaustion). I didn’t feel that any of these were worthwhile, but I settled on Suppression because it seemed the least worthless. I hate having my spells resisted.

Improved Life Tap - 2/2 points
Increases the amount of Mana awarded by your Life Tap spell by 20%.

Improved Curse of Weakness - 3/3 points
Increases the effect of your Curse of Weakness by 20%.

It was either these two, or 5/5 in Improved Drain Life. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Drain Life, and I use it in nearly every fight, frequently more than once. However, I examined the benefits of the talent maxed (+10% damage). The highest level Drain Life (Rank 6 at level 54) does 71 dps for 5 seconds. I just didn’t feel that 5 talent points were a worthwhile investment for only 35 damage per cast.
You will get this extra damage anyway once Shadow Mastery is maxed.

However, I find myself using Curse of Weakness quite a bit, and it (especially Amplified) will frequently reduce the damage of a mob by as much as 1/4, and in some cases even 1/3. The best use of CoW is on duel-wielding and/or quick attacking mobs and players. It’s fun seeing a 40ish mob doing < 20 damage per hit.

Life Tap is also invaluable. Use it in instances, use it before you cast Drain Life if you have full health, use it to balance your health and mana before resting. Hell, Tap yourself down to a sliver of health if you are running low on water and have plenty of food.

Improved Drain Soul - 2/2 points
Gives you a 100% chance to get a 100% increase to your Mana regeneration for 10 seconds if the target dies while while you drain its soul. In addition, your Mana may continue to regenerate while casting at 50% of normal.

Cuts down on downtime between fights. I would have skipped this, but these two points were needed to get to 25 Affliction points in order to get Shadow Mastery, as discussed earlier. This was by far the best talent out of the ones available.

Fel Concentration - 5/5 points
Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channelling the Drain Life, Drain Mana, or Drain Soul spell.

Yes. This is amazing. If you’re getting pounded by a mob or player, it’s not a half bad strategy to keep spamming Drain Life. They only have a 30% chance to interrupt it, and get a huge chunk taken out of their DPS since you are gaining life so quickly, whilst taking damage at the same time.

Amplify Curse - 1/1 point
Increases the effect of your next Curse of Weakness or Curse of Agony by 50%, or your next Curse of Exhaustion by 20%.

Use every 3 minutes. Not a great talent, but worth a point.

Grim Reach - 2/2 points
Increases the range of your Affliction spells by 20%.

Range is your friend.

Nightfall - 2/2 points
Gives your Corruption and Drain Life spells a 4% chance to cause you to enter a Shadow Trance state after damaging the opponent. The Shadow Trance state reduces the casting time of your next Shadow Bolt spell by 100%.

Fun and useful. Between Corruption every 3 seconds and Drain Life every second, Nightfall procs at least once in nearly every fight. With affliction being my focus, this is the only time I ever cast Shadow Bolt. Nice big boost to my DPS without interfering with business as usual.

Siphon Life - 1/1 point
Transfers 13 (increases with ranks, up to 35 at level 60) health from the target to the caster every 3 seconds. Lasts 30 seconds.
Meh. I can’t decide if this is worth casting, but it was a required part of the tree. I like the icon!

Shadow Mastery - 5/5 points
Increases the damage dealt or life drained by your Shadow spells by 10%.

I’m only level 42, so I haven’t tasted this particular fruit yet, but it looks delicious.

Dark Pact - 1/1 point
Drains 150 of your pet's Mana, returning 100% to you.

Seems quite nice. My pets at 42 have a little over 1000 mana. The Succubus can be used to deal pure melee damage to keep its mana pool available, I suppose. The Imp can be kept invisible as a cute second mana pool and stamina boost. The voidwalker looks like a giant mana pool, but I don’t know… I don’t seem to ever use good ol’ Hukkresh anymore.

Demonology Talents (8 points)

Improved Imp - 3/3 points
Increases the effect of your Imp's Firebolt, Fire Shield, and Blood Pact spells by 30%.

Extra damage, and even better, extra health for the whole party. A worthy use of 3 points.

Demonic Embrace - 5/5 points
Increases your total Stamina by 15%, but reduces your total Spirit by 5%.

Wow, I mean wow. This and Improved Corruption are in a tight race for best first row talent. For humans, who have a +5% innate spirit bonus, this talent just puts you back at net zero (not the dialup company).

The following is all speculation, since I'm only 42 and I have never put a single point in a Destruction talent.

Destruction Talents (11 points)

I was at a loss as for what to do with the rest of my points. I thought about maxing Fel Intellect and Fel Stamina to give my pets a +15% health and mana boost, and still may go that direction. My other idea (below) was to move into Destruction to get Shadowburn.

Improved Shadow Bolt - 5/5 points
Your Shadow Bolt critical strikes increase the next 4 sources of Shadow damage dealt to the target by 20%.

I use Shadow Bolt whenever Nightfall procs (about once a fight) but I can’t remember a single time that I’ve gotten a crit. Cataclysm reduces Destruction spell mana cost by 5%, which is also pretty paltry. It’s a toss-up for me.

Bane - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Shadow Bolt and Immolate spells by 0.5 seconds.

-.5 seconds isn’t much compared to -2 seconds from Improved Corruption, but I think it would be better than a 10% chance to daze from destruction spells. Does anyone know if the 10% can proc from each tick of Immolate? That might make it better. Dunno, I’m kind of out of my comfort area here

Shadowburn - 1/1 point
Instantly blasts the target with 87 to 99 (increases with ranks, up to 450-502 at level 56) Shadow damage. Requires 1 Soul Shard. If the target dies from Shadowburn, and yields experience, the caster gains a Soul Shard.

Instant direct damage costing a soul shard. Guess it’s pretty good.

You might notice I have one extra point. Anyone have an idea where I should put it? Maybe I’ll just keep it as a good-luck point when I get to 60

I've been told that Destruction is the most effective in high-level instances, so a respec might be in order when I get to that point. So far, my current build has seemed the most effective both for solo and group/instance play. But as always, YMMV

Ok, some notes on talents you have.

Improved CoA is not worth taking in all honesty. As you level you will use CoA less and less depending more on other curses like Shadows and Elements, especially since you plan to go down the Destruction tree, save the 2 points for else where.

Amplify Curse is only useful if you plan to go for Curse of Exhaustion. If you are not going to go for CoEx, skip Amplify and go with something else on the points.

As such, with these 3 points saved, I would put them towards Fel Concentration. Better to have 70% avoidance of interruption while draining than just a mere 28%.



If you want to get Conflagrate, you're going to have to take Improved Immolate. You cannot get Conflagrate without 5 points into Improved Immolate.

If you plan to group a lot, having Improved Searing Pain will cause problems. Searing Pain already has a high agro effect and having it crit more often (between Devestation and Improved Searing Pain) means you are going to get agro more often. If you combine in Curse of Elements, things will get silly quickly (you haven't seen the crazy crits as yet, but when you do, you'll be amazed at how quick you take agro, I've personally done 4k damage in 4 seconds by casting Curse of Elements followed by Immolate for 1.6k damage on the front load followed by 2.4k damage on the Conflagrate because of how negative resistance, Ruin, and criticals react).


I also think you're overlooking the biggest gem talent the Warlock gets and it comes at T1 in Demonology, that being Demonic Embrace. The loss of 5% Spirit is negligible to a Warlock because a Warlock depends on their health to regain mana. As such, having a higher Stamina through Demonic Embrace will also increase your Mana pool (along with your pet's health and giving you a breather when casting Hellfire, the highest damage AoE in the game with the best damage to mana ratio of any AoE).


Also, something to note for later in the game when you start running instances, due to the 8 debuff limit, Nightfall may be of limited use as your corruption and your drain life may get pushed off the mob by other players adding in debuffs as well. So while Nightfall is a good talent, be ready to see it's effect diminish as you get into the high end game.

When you (Zarathustra and Lissa) say Inferno, do you mean Immolate? I thought it was just a typo but since you're both referring to Inferno I think maybe I am confused.

No, you're right it's immolate....just call it inferno cause it seems better when combined with conflagrate...

Zippy, you really underestimate Suppression. Maxed suppression effectively means you have a lot more fear, your afflic spells do more damage, and last longer.

Curse of Weakness you'll find not useful enough to amp. Its great for 'normal' mobs below your level, and sometimes PvP (when situation calls for it), but definitely not against elites.

Improve Drain soul is bugged--and why are you worried about mana regen? Warlocks do not mana regen. They lifetap halfway, then both eat and drink. If in dire battle, fear and do not cast damage doers (beyond a siphon life or CoA), and bandage up. Then life tap. Warlocks should have extremely little active downtime, in the order of Warriors.

Work on your First Aid, if you haven't already. Tailoring is no excuse. Bandages increase warlock effectiveness 2-3x.

If you're going to invest in Demonology beyond 5 points, stick them in Health funnel. Improved imp is marginal compared to the benefit of health funneling to your Voidwalker or other pet.

Btw: Since this is a Warlock thread...

There've been a number of stealth nerfs.

You may no longer pre-buff fear. Casting fear on monsters already feared by you will no longer reset fear counter. It only waste your cast. Howeer, casting on other people's feared targets will work.

Enslave demon has been nerfed. Banish will no longer reset its counter, and enslaved demons will generally not stay enslaved beyond the first 4 minute enslave. Secondary and tertiary enslaves won't work long, and repeated enslaves will be resisted or immune. Waste of shards beyond initial enslave.

Pet pathfinding has been improved. Pets will now jump off cliffs with you.

Dark pact has been fixed with enslaved creatures. You may now steal mana from your enslaved pets.

Many neutral mobs/npcs no longer auto-aggro your pet.

"Defensive" is still bugged when trying to help other side. Possibly an AoE issue. Set pets on passive whenever in question and able to pet-micro.

I wish warlocks did have the demon hunter's immolate spell. It would be neat to cast on tanks to help them keep group aggro. Oh well, just theorizing.

Is Inferno the name of the spell that summons an Infernal, as it was in WC3? Or did they name it Summon Infernal or some such?



Edit: typo

Yes, I meant Immolate. Heh, I don't know where "inferno" came from.

You bring up a lot of good points. Yes, my only excuse for not taking up first aid was Tailoring. Yes, I don't run out of mana, ever, due to prolific use of Life Tap. That kind of throws a wrench in my talent build, since the final goal is to make it to dark pact and make use of your new, gigantic mana pool. Since you are correct and I never have mana problems, I am thinking of going destruction the next time I respec. It's been on the edge of my thoughts, but since affliction has served me well for this long, I've never been quite ballsy enough to switch.

Would you mind terribly much sharing your talent build, and a short description of each choice? Maybe a few high-level warlocks could do this, and we could keep this nice discussion going

You mean like the Imp spell "fire shield"?

Not really. The demon hunter's immolate did periodic damage to nearby enemies, just like the shaman's lightning shield. It was a short-range AoE dot, not like fire shield/thorns.

At least, I think that's what it did, I could be remembering wrong.

More like the Infernal's immolation (aura).

I've been playing under the impression that the 8 debuff limit was something that Blizzard was looking into fixing (that is, increasing) in a future patch. However, I don't actually recall this being stated at any point. Am I just imagining something, or was there a basis of this in reality.

As I recall from reading Thotts automated blue post gatherer, they are looking into it which means they MAY change it. I wouldn't count on it anytime soon, it would take major rebalancing to accomplish.

Well, the future is more bleak than I had suspected, then.

It's unfortunate that there's a class that Blizzard touts as the "debuff class" when they've artificially limited its abilities. I mean, there's already the restriction of only one curse per Warlock, which seems like the design decision. As such, I don't see how it would really require rebalancing since it seems that they HAVE looked at it from a balancing perspective and added restrictions. It seems mostly a UI/programming restriction, to me, rather than a balance issue. If it is a balance issue, it's a poor way to implement it, in my opinion. However, I wouldn't put that past Blizzard.

Anyway, thanks for the post.

I'm not an expert, but I am a programmer.

My guess (and maybe a beta person could back me up) is that the debuff limit has always been in the game. Before there were raid groups, someone probably sat down and said "How many debuffs can you stack on a mob? 5 people, 1.5 debuffs each, 8 sounds about right". The balancing of end game content probably happened much later, and all that work and testing was done assuming the 8 debuff limit.

Obviously, they went live before the end game was completly done, witness the recent restrictions on the size of raid groups. Idealy they would have tested some of this stuff thourougly enough to see that zerging is bad and 8 debuffs are not enough, but then I'd still be reading beta forums instead of playing a flawed but very fun game.

Also, I'm pretty sure Lightning Shield = Fire Shield as far as the mechanics go: either when you hit him or he hits you. I don't think lightning shield just goes off on proximity.

The WC3 spell imolate is AOE, but the area is tiny. It works out to very nearly the same thing.

I'm pretty sure he's referring to the Warcraft 3 Lightning Shield, which works much like Immolate, except that it damages allied units.

Actually, Lightning Shield doesn't care for proximity at all: it'll retaliate on a Fireball launched from 41 yards away just as well as it'll hit someone swinging a weapon one yard away.

That always bothered me about WoW's lightning shield after having played War3.

Nah, I was saying lightning shield WOW = fire shield WOW, as far as the mechanics of when it hits. Forgot about ranged, anyone know if a fire shield affects ranged combat?

Immolate WC3 = LS WC3, except LS affects friendlys, giving it the potential to be used offensivly or defensivly.

Back to the original post that started this, I don't know why warlocks would have an immolate ability. It seems like that sort of thing is already covered by Fire shield, the Infernal immolate and Hellfire.

I'm not following your reasoning on the elite point. The damage mitigation buys you more time to deal damage, which you need even more against elites. If you have Amplify Curse, you can use an amped improved CoW on an elite boss for a lot of mitigation.

I find myself using CoW all the time grinding, too. I can easily tread my aggro limit without the other damaging curses, so why not use CoW on all melee?

On top of that, it works well in combination with Life Drain or Blood Funnel.


CoW only requires 3 talent points for a 20% buff. That's not only cheap, but a relatively huge increase, especially considering it gives increasing returns. Considering the other options at that point in Affliction, I consider it a damn good talent to invest in.